


The Dark Woods Circus' Monster

by KitsunePhantom09



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's
Genre: AU-gust 2020, Alternate Universe - Circus, Body Horror, M/M, reader beware this is dark stuff, ygocollablove
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:35:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26109541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KitsunePhantom09/pseuds/KitsunePhantom09
Summary: Once, the circus was meant to wow and inspire its audience with feats of grandeur.Now it horrifies and terrifies them with unholy creatures of man's own design.
Relationships: Jack Atlas/Fudou Yuusei
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14
Collections: AUgust 2020





	The Dark Woods Circus' Monster

Once, Jack had loved the spotlight.

He loved the attention, how the audience hung onto his every word, every motion. He had been the star of the entire circus with his various abilities – tremendous strength, the skill to ‘breathe fire’ like a dragon, and even the ability to sing like no other. But one day, everything changed. The audience changed what they wanted to see; no longer were feats of skill, talent, and prowess desired. They wanted to see the bizarre, the unusual, the horrific. The master of the circus obliged, for if the circus was to survive, then it must cater to its guests.

Every performer was brought in for ‘adjustments’ as they were called. They each held a special role in the circus, and the changes were made either to emphasis it or just not to hinder it. But everyone was turned into a monster, an unholy abomination. A bloody, broken mess of flesh filled with agony and despair.

Jack, being the most popular and the most diverse, was saved for last and had the most extensive changes. Two pairs of horns adorned his head, one pair smooth and upright, the other jagged and curled downward. His teeth were pointed and sharp, as was his tongue. Wicked spikes jutted out at each joint, along each vertebrae, replaced his nails. Dark and red scales overtook large swathes of skin, strong but inflexible. His legs broke and rearranged themselves to be more animal-like. He grew a long tail with a bladed tip. A pair of red and black wings grew up from his back, their membrane quickly slashed and torn to prevent flight.

‘The Demon’s Dragon’ he was called now. Heavy chains were cuffed to his neck, his wrists, his ankles, when he was performing. When he wasn’t, he was trapped in a cage wrapped with barbed wire to be gawked at. At first, his new situation had been too much to bear. His songs were slow and sorrowful, speaking of his unending pain and deep despair.

But, as he endured longer and longer, he regained his true inner fire. His despair and agony mixed together, festering and growing until it was a burning fury for what had been done to him. He did not ask to be made a monster – none of them had – so what right had the master of the circus to do such things to them? No longer would the Demon’s Dragon sit idly by, playing the mournful creature wishing to return to prior days. He snapped and snarled at onlookers, his songs were of his force of will, his determination, his boundless rage at it all. His desire to burn this wretched place to the ground and dance among the flames.

But Jack was alone in his fight. All his fellows had been thoroughly consumed by their despair, unable to see any glimmer of light, perhaps even unwilling to search for it. He tried to stir some semblance of resistance, to give the others hope to escape at least one part of this man-made hell, but nothing stuck. That revelation was a blow to his renewed spirit; if the others saw no hope, was it truly futile to fight? But he shook it away – he had fought by his lonesome before and won, why should this be different?

So he fought. Jack snapped at visitors, breathed fire at them, sang malicious songs of how he’d love to tear them apart for fueling the master’s decision to commit such atrocities against him. How he longed to burn the master alive for giving in to such malevolent desires.

And the audience loved him.

Jack remained the star of the show, the one act that everyone wanted to see, the beast everyone gathered around to view. They poked and prodded him to see him flash his claws and fangs. Taunted him just beyond his reach and shrieked with warped amusement when he spat fire at them. They echoed his songs, singing to themselves and each other. They reveled in his misery, were happily entertained watching his struggles. Perhaps Jack looked the part of monster, but it was the audience who were truly monstrous.

One day, the master brought in a new performer. Ever since the ‘adjustments’, no one new had been brought on, so this was a shock. Jack expected to see yet another godforsaken monster of a normal human, come to point and jeer at his plights.

It was another person like him.

A young man covered in glistening, jagged sheets of blue ice and white frost. His arms and legs looked like they’d been made from ice, pale blue and translucent with clawed digits. His entire body shook with the cold it produced. Every labored inhale forced him to break his icy shell over and over again, making it hiss out blizzard-like gusts of wind. He was seemingly locked in a kneeling position, hugging himself as if to brace against the cold that stole his body for itself. Even when the workers picked him up to place him in his cage, his position never changed.

For the first few acts since the new arrival, Jack had only stared at him, perplexed. He’d never seen this man before, why was he here? Why was he made a victim of this cruel torture? The audience marveled at the newcomer as well, commenting on how pretty he was. Jack lashed out on the icy prisoner’s behalf – how could they so easily ignore his obvious suffering?! It did nothing to help; the audience laughed and mocked Jack’s attempts to protect the newcomer, sarcastically asked if he thought the newcomer was pretty, too.

In the dark after that, when the circus was quiet and empty of guests, the icy prisoner spoke. He stuttered and trailed off many times for just two sentences, but Jack patiently waited. The newcomer’s name was Yusei, and he appreciated Jack coming to his defense.

Ever since, the two would talk during the night. Jack spoke of the way the circus had been before, during the days he had been proud to be the star. Of the fall into the selfish madness of the master and the way everyone had been dragged down with him. Of Jack’s own rage, of the ever-burning flame in his heart to one day finally break free from this hell. He knew he’d never be the same, but living an altered life under his own power was better than staying trapped here.

Yusei’s perspective was enlightening. He had been orphaned and been sent to the master’s own home at a tender age for care. He had seen the master’s descent into madness from the other side; it was not self-inflicted. The master had been a mortal man who had simply shattered under the pressure of so many others thrusting their own selfish desires onto him. To turn on the boy he had treated like a son was likely the last of the master’s humanity withering away, leaving only sadistic, desperate madness behind.

But Yusei was not so passionate about leaving. He was little more than an ice statue, only able to blink and breathe; talking was strenuous and difficult on a good day. Even if he was whisked away from the circus, from the control of the master, what life would he have? He was damned either way, doomed to only watch as time and life passed him by.

Jack was not satisfied with that. He had seen his friends, his fellow performers, fall into the abyss of the master’s creation – he would not lose yet another person to it! With a deep breath, Jack breathed his fire to the icy prisoner, coating him in flames. The ice cracked and snapped loudly, violently wrenching Yusei’s body at it did. He screamed an impossible scream, a truly haunting sound as it stuttered and wobbled but lasted so long.

When the flames subsided, Jack looked upon his work. The thick plates of ice were gone, reduced to melted puddles on the floor. Beneath them had been red frost, at though Yusei’s blood had leaked from his body and frozen over. Slowly, with the frost crackling and being shed, Yusei straightened his back, popping it repeatedly as he did. Every limb, every part of his body that he stretched behaved much the same, popping and cracking from disuse.

The expression of shock on Yusei’s face was slowly morphing to one of joy. Jack’s fire had returned his body to him and, should they stick together, would keep it his own.


End file.
